Oh, Well, Howdy There!
It's been another week, which was crazy short and super long
at the same time. Weird stuff. I've stopped trying to figure out how time works
on a mission because It's just insane - it's fast, but slow, and you just have
no idea what's going on. Story of my life.
Stories. Stories to tell. Just after I emailed last week, we
had out first lesson with Margaret. She was a referral from the Hermanas, and
lives in Tamina. Tamina is...scary, to say the least. It's literally on the
other side of the tracks and is as ghetto as it gets. The bishop has forbade us
from going there after dark without a priesthood leader and the ward council
forbade us from tracting there. It's one of those places where people have one
or two chairs and no carpet or doors in their houses. As scary as it is, I
would love to teach more people there, because the ones that are open to the
gospel are the ones like Margaret. She's in her late 30s, has two boys, and no
man to speak of, but is just the most humble, most soft spoken, kindest lady
you'll ever meet. Whatever she has, she shares, and she just wants to do what
God wants of her. She reads the Book of Mormon, she has questions, and she just
wants to know what's right. AGH! She's so great. The Spirit is ridiculously
strong when we teach her - it's crazy. We're going back to teach her tomorrow
night and will hopefully be able to set a baptismal date.
Later that night, my leg just decided to stop working.
Looking back on it, we think it was probably a dehydration cramp, but all I
knew was that it hurt. We called the District Leader, Elder Vought, and asked
him if he'd meet us at the church to give me a blessing - something I probably wouldn't
have thought of, but Sister Quist is totally on top of it. We went, and it was
great, and as he was giving the blessing, I got the feeling that it had nothing
to do with my leg. I'm quite stubborn, you see, and I expect myself to be
perfect on my own. Whatever mystery leg pain was going on was probably just the
Lord finding some way to show that He could help me, and that I was doing fine.
I don't need to be perfect, and I don't need to do this alone. I can't do it
alone, and that's the point.
We taught the third lesson to Kezza this week as well. We
explained the importance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and told her of the
baptism date that we set for her. It was a lot at once, and though she was
doing really well, the date just kind of blew her mind. I felt a little bit
bad. We could kind of see her internally freak out as we were talking. We told
her to think and pray about it, and that we would follow up on Sunday. We
talked to her yesterday, and she said that the day that we had chosen was a good
day, but that she wanted to see if we could wait until her mom comes from
Africa. We have some figuring out to do, but she's ready, which is just
awesome. She's awesome. I just love her.
The biggest thing we did, and kind of the overarching theme
of the week started with a little thing we like to call the Area Book. It has
records of the people in the area that have been contacted, taught, and baptized. Well, that's the theory, anyway. It was a disaster. The record
keeping was a mess, and I may or may not have gotten really, really grumpy and
angry at all of the Sisters and Elders that had come before us. It was
nonsense. We finally cleaned it out, though, and have lots of people to
contact. At the same time that was happening, I was also thinking of ways to
not tract. I've mostly gotten over my fear, but I still hate it because it is
honestly the LEAST EFFECTIVE WAY TO FIND PEOPLE EVER. All joking aside, it's a
total waste of time and it makes me angry. We really don't have that much time
to serve and using it tracting frustrates me. The members in our ward, however,
as wonderful as they are, are not helpful. We get one, maybe two referrals in a
week, and even then, they usually don't work out because the members aren't
helping us. We talked to the Bishop (Bishop Rapoza, who may just be the
sweetest man alive,) and are doing more work on Less Active members, and then
spending our time teaching the members how to be missionaries. It probably
won't happen while I'm here, but I can just see this ward tearing it up. It's
going to happen.
The title - We were at the store and saw One Direction
stuff, but we needed to remember our shopping list, so we kept repeating the
phrase "Mustard, Cheese, One Direction," as though we were very
clever. The miracle of birth part? Yeah. Around 10 o'clock last night, we got a
call from the other sisters that live in our apartment complex. We were very confused,
and answered the phone. It went a little like this:
Sister Quist: "Hello?"
Sister Laws: "DO YOU HAVE RAID? WE'RE KIND OF HAVING AN
EMERGENCY."
Quist: "Yeah..."
Laws:
"WILLYOUBRINGITOVERRIGHTNOWBECAUSEACOCKROACHJUSTHADBABIES
ONOURBATHROOMFLOORANDWEDON'TKNOWWHATTODOOOOOOO"
Click.
Yeah. So, we run across the complex to find Sister Laws and
Sister Zamacona all in a tizzy on top of their beds because they watched the
cockroach have babies, watched them crawl across the floor, and then disappear.
We sprayed everything down and left the can with them. We haven't heard
anything else, so I'm assuming that they're fine.
Okay - Erbody. If you're reading this email, I'm talking to
you. I am issuing a desperate plea to everyone who can hear me - HELP. THE.
MISSIONARIES. It's not our job to find people, and frankly, we're not good at
it. We don't know people, we're weird, and we only have six weeks in your area. You've lived
with non-members for a while now, and they know you, and they like you. You
don't have to make it awkward, and you don't have to give them the discussions,
but for heaven sakes, do something. Have people over when you feed the missionaries.
Give people simple, direct answers when they ask about your CTR ring, or why
you don't (insert standard here.) You don't even have to ask people to take the
lessons - get them near the missionaries and have the missionaries ask them.
We're being transferred in 6 weeks and everybody thinks we're weird anyway. We
don't care. Just, please. Please help. Give them meaningful things to do with
their time, because you make all of the difference. Need help? Go to the
church's Work of Salvation website. It's awesome.
So, I love you. I am so grateful for all of the people that
have written to me, or prayed for me, or who just love me, because I can feel
it. Thank you so much for everything you do. Be good, and do the things that
you know you should. I love you, and the Lord loves you too. Just, help Him. He
can't do His work without you. As Sister Andersen always said, "There's
nothing two can't do when one is God and the other is you." Tear it up,
people.
Love,
Sister Liljenquist
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